The series Folk Graffiti by Kaliningrad artist Evgeny Umansky consists of a number of color photographs that depict the handmade "art-reflections" (of a rather naughty nature) of the most vulnerable characters of our city community concerning various political, socio-economic and personal events.

Anonymous graffiti are public expressions, manifestations of irritation, affirmation, and disagreement; they are appeals and exposures. They are created with nails, spray paint, chalk, mud, and often with whatever is available. On residential buildings, fences, garages, public transport stops, schools, hospitals, maternity hospitals, pavements, and so forth, something unique, individual and acute can appear in a single night. Recollections, complexes, moral principles, politics, and taboo areas may all be explored. This specific means of communication with fellow citizens through a bright "bunch" of expressions (stars, swastikas, Go Mother Fucker, Fuck You, Bloody mess, etc.) is typical for this exclusively western Russian exclave. Other areas of Russia are marked primarily by political graffiti (as in Moscow) or by the baser inclinations of the population towards grafo-reflection (as in Tol'iatti).

The range of anonymous Kaliningrad writers on walls includes variations on the Swastika or Star of David, the celebration of the holiday Hanukah, critical appeals to NATO (NATO - demons), unprintable statements, nationalist slogans, unpleasant expressions addressed to political leaders (somebody ... is a thief), names of animals (goat, toad, eagle, pussy), evil spirits (Satan), expressions of love and affection regarding both the city (fu**ing Konig, my native city!) and human (I love you!), up to less comprehensible unconscious expressions of graffitism comprising one or a maximum two letters (if). The best remembered recent gesture is Hamlet's question "Who am I?" written on the wall of a residential building.

Unfortunately or fortunately, these writings do not persist long in pleasing or disturbing public morals. They disappear, are covered over or, at worst, they are rewritten in a censorial way that testifies to the authorities' concern regarding the positive image of our city. This range of anonymous self-expression may be considered from the viewpoint of rehabilitation; real life goes on in an area safe for the community, serious passions emerge and die away, and most importantly a silent communication takes place that finds no response.

Evgeny Umansky, who has decided to tackle this material, works with the initial text first; image is also important and quite often requires a different approach. Anonymous graffiti is prudently composed and regulated; everything superfluous is cruelly excised from it. The representational field of the photographs include not only word-expressions but also light, shade, reliefs, holes, surface flaws, and color richness. Questions (the objects of shots) and answers (artist's photographs) are composed into an integral photo series that is sometimes shocking in its apt perception of our present day reality.